The Communist Party of Britain-affiliated Morning Star briefly featured a jaw-dropping attack on the Russian punk group Pussy Riot (currently serving a two-year prison sentence) and a tribute to the autocratic Vladimir Putin by none other than antisemite/Holocaust denier/Assange collaborator/Lukashenko enabler/all-around slimeball Israel Shamir.

Update: Jim Denham at Shiraz Socialist notes that Shamir’s rant also appeared in the print edition of The Morning Star, where is it is also preserved forever, or until the newsprint disintegrates.

Update 2: This is the Morning Star’s weak mea culpa:

“A NUMBER of you have raised concerns over the decision to reprint an article by Israel Shamir on the Russian band Pussy Riot that appeared in the weekend’s Morning Star.The paper would like to reassure readers that the piece was syndicated from Counterpunch in good faith without knowledge of the author’s background.

We would like to reiterate the paper’s commitment to publishing writers who reflect and remain steadfastly committed to the values of anti-racism, anti-fascism, international solidarity and social justice that the paper has campaigned for ever since its establishment.

It remains guided by those goals and will seek in future, wherever possible, to establish the full biography of writers before publishing their work.

In the meantime the Morning Star would like to distance itself from the opinions of the author of the piece, which do not reflect our position or those of the wider movement.

We apologise wholeheartedly for any distress caused.”

David Osler also notes that in 2009, the Morning Star printed a favourable review of a book by holocaust denier Nick Kollerstrom, favourably quoting Larouchite Webster Tarpley.